Would Love Have Kept Her?
by Elycium
Summary: A small diary is found recounting when Tom Riddle finally lost the last pieces of his humanity. please R&R! flames will be used to roast wormtail.


Dumbledore held the old leatherbound diary in his hands, just sitting at his desk for a moment. The students, Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Ron Weasley had found it, and had given it to him. He recognized the initals T.M.R. imprinted on the cover but he could not gues what was inside that could have been written by such a creature. "Only one way to find out," he murmered. And with a soft sigh, he opened the front cover and began to read the old tatered pages...  
  
"December 25, 1944. I, Tom Riddle, write in these few pages, as an account more to put what little I have left to rest so that I may move on and complete my plans. What little humanity I had left, and what part of my heart I still kept has been killed in a single event. The events as I write them now are as they were when they took place, only last night.  
  
It was cold outside, under the stars, and the snow was falling everywhere..."  
  
  
  
The snow fell all around outside Hogwarts, a wizarding school in the form of an old castle. The snow was almost charming on the christmas eve, a beautiful full moon giving the snow a silver glow. The lake was frozen over, but the ice was still thin and the black water was still visible beneath it.  
  
On the bank of the lake, under a heavy wool cloak, I stood, a tall young man with short black hair and icy dark eyes. I was waiting for someone, and paced through the deep snow impatiently. I kept looking up at one of the towers, and smiled when I saw the glow of a candle come to a window. He could see the outline of someone in a cloak, with long wavy hair, holding a candle in one hand, waving with the other. And with a chilly breath of wind the flame went out. But I wasn't worried. My companion would be joining him soon.  
  
"Tom!" called a soft voice though the snow. 'Tom, are you still there!"  
  
"I am here, Renee," I answered, watching as she ran up to me. Like an angel shrowded in wool, he thought. Her long hair, dark red in color, blew behind her, dotted with snowdrops that glistenind like crystal, and her skin was almost as pale as the moon itself. Her lips, however, were the color of roses, and her eyes as green as the rose's leaves. It was almost unnoticeable, her limp, an unfixable injury from her childhood; an accident that had left her parents dead, herself in a muggle orphanage, and with a mangled limb. I embraced her, letting her catch her breath in the chilly air.   
  
"I have something for you,' she said softly, smiling. "I was going to give it to you tomorrow, but I'm being picked up. They want me back, for some reason, lord only knows what. Here, open it!" She shoved a little box into my hands, which was wrapped in gold paper and tied with ribbons of all colors.  
  
"Renee, what is this?" I asked, tossing the paper aside, opening the lid. Inside were some paintbrushes.   
  
"Paint brushes," she smiled. 'Now you have no excuse for not coming to me this summer and painting my protrait like you promised you would." Her smile broadened. Oh she was such a simpleton at times.  
  
"Renee, I can't come to you this summer, and the only contact we shall be able to maintain for a while is by letter. You know this. I have things to do and plans to carry out."  
  
Her beautiful face clouded with a mixture of saddness, anger, and fear. "You still plan on going through with this, Tom. But why? You could have so much, without the dark arts! Why choose this path? Tom, forget this evil, be happy with what you have, and with me. I beg of you."  
  
Oh how I loved her. So sweet, so simple. Of all the people who knew of my plan, she alone was not truely in my circle, and there was no need for her to be. She would never tell anyone, not because I'd told her not too, but because she'd never betray my trust. She didn't want to be alone again.  
  
"And let the injustice done to me go unpunished? I think not, my dear. I would give you the world, for you to rule by my side, if you would but take it! Renee, think of the opertunity!" She had backed up, near the edge of the lake...she was actually on it, the ice giving slightly under her weight.   
  
"Tom, please, don't say such things. You know that I wouldn't ever make that choice, even to be with you. Please, give up this mad dream, this is folly. If you don't I'll...I'll tell the headmaster!"  
  
'No you won't," I replied cooly.  
  
"I won't?" She took another step back. The ice was cracking. I beckoned her forward, but she didn't move. 'And what makes you think that I won't?" Another step back.   
  
"Because you love me." Simple enough, and something that had always worked when we gotten into tiny arguements. "And because I love you, and I won't let you. Renee, please, come back to me."  
  
"You don't love me." Her accusation was harsh, more so than the chilly snow filled air. She took another step back, almost fearfully.  
  
"Renee, what are you doing?!" I demanded. I was worried for her, truely worried for her!   
  
With a soft, 'Good-bye." She was gone. She had vanished through the ie into the black water. I called to her, but she was gone. I couldn't have believed she'd done that. I'd have expected something like that maybe from one of my Slytherin housemates, but never from a Gryffindor, and never from Renee!   
  
I was panicing! Imagine, I, who would one day rule the wizarding and muggle world, was panicing. I preformed a summoning charm, calling her up from the black waters. Her skin was tinged blue, almost transparent in its paleness. Her lips were an icy shade and her beautiful green eyes were glassy. I knew as I took her into my arms that she was gone to me, and the world, forever. I didn't even make the attempt to revive her. And for what would be the last time in my life, I'd wept.   
  
I carried her body to the edge of the forest there and buried her, along with what was left of my humanity. The rest of that night I'd taken the brushes she'd given to me and painted her portrait, as she had asked of me. She was bathed in a golden light, walking down a set of stairs in a long gown, her hand resting upon the pillar as she had been when she'd walked down the stairs to meet me for the winter ball. After words I forged a letter claiming she'd run away. Dipet would believe it, the fool. They would all believe it...  
  
  
  
"And so I write these pages, with the last inkling of regret I'll ever know. I've buried my humanity with her, I her killer, in all truth. Some pain still burns in my chest, as I watch a few tears shed by those from her house, asking why she'd run and where she could have gone to. I think Dumbledore suspects something, the nosy old man."  
  
  
Dumbledore paused for a moment before continuing to read.   
  
"I will go on, as I had planned to do, and put the memories of my beloved Renee behind me. But, as I close this writing with what will be the last time I ever use this name with a true purpose I cannot help but wonder... If not for myself, but maybe by the sould of another, would she have stayed. iwould love have kept her?/i  
  
  
centeriTom Riddle/i/center 


End file.
